The Maastricht criteria measure the nominal convergence process of transfor
mation countries to the European Union (resp. the EMU). The real convergenc
e process, as opposed to the nominal, is much less scrutinized. Due to the
high income elasticity of imports in Central and Eastern European countries
, the question arises as to whether these countries will be able to stabili
ze their external balances as their GDP growth rates accelerate toward EU l
evels. The authors made several estimates of the export and import function
s for six CEE countries. Using the monetary approach to delineate internal
balance and Polak's model to measure external balance, the results show tha
t the Czech Republic and Poland are the least advanced in nominal convergen
ce due to the widening of their respective external imbalance.